Latest / Talk Commerce / B2B Digital Evolution at 3M with Xavier Rio
Transcript
- Brent Peterson (00:01.86) Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Xavier Rio. He is the head of e-commerce for 3M. Xavier, go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and maybe one of your passions in life. Xavier Rio (00:15.374) Yeah, thank you a lot, Brad. So, hello everyone. I'm Xavier Rios. It's a French name. I'm French based in France, near Paris. I'm a global e-commerce manager in the 3M Safety and Industrial Business Group. So, my daily responsibility is to drive different e-commerce initiatives in 3M to generate growth through e-commerce. And in life, I'm really passionate about... digital transformation and also I'm a former rugby player. I'm still a big fan of rugby. No, it's not really popular in the US, but these sports bring me a lot of collaboration and teamwork, strengths and expertise. Brent Peterson (01:06.64) Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I know rugby is becoming more popular. And of course, I think the US women's rugby team won the Olympics. yeah. Very good. Well, let's just pause for a second because I don't see my counter going right now. I'm just gonna, I see we're recording, but it's not, it doesn't say we're going forward. I'm gonna refresh my screen. Xavier Rio (01:12.94) Yes, and the French one also for the men. Brent Peterson (01:42.179) There we go. All right. I think. Xavier Rio (01:43.394) Yeah. Brent, I don't know if we continue, but could we redo the intro because I'm not leading all e-commerce in 3M. Just so I'm part of the 3M global organization and I don't want to... Brent Peterson (01:46.511) Yes. Brent Peterson (02:00.497) sure, yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Absolutely, yeah. We'll start over and now I can see it's counting down, so maybe it didn't even record. All right, we'll start. Welcome to Talk Commerce. Today I have Xavier Rieu. is the e-commerce manager for Europe. Xavier, I'll let you do the intro. Global e-commerce manager, perfect, okay. Xavier Rio (02:07.809) Okay. Xavier Rio (02:21.282) Yeah, yeah, OK. Global e-commerce manager. Brent Peterson (02:30.577) welcome to this episode of talk commerce today i have xavier rio he is the global e-commerce manager for 3m xavier go ahead do an introduction for yourself tell us your day to day role and one of your passions in life Xavier Rio (02:43.438) OK, thanks a lot, Brent. And hello, everyone. So I'm very real. So I'm a French based in France near Paris. And I have the pleasure to be a global e-commerce manager in 3M safety and industrial business group. So my daily activity is to lead various global e-commerce projects and programs across US, Europe. Asia, GCE and Latam to generate additional incremental sales through our e-commerce partners platforms. As a patient, I'm a former rugby player, I know that it's not a sport really popular in the US, even if the women US team won the gold medal in the last Olympic game in Paris. But Rigby is a fantastic sport. I'm a big fan and the Rigby brings me lot of collaboration and teamwork value. So, great. Brent Peterson (03:55.065) Yeah, and I think everybody in the US thinks rugby is a little bit one above maybe American football because you don't wear helmets and you don't wear lot of padding like the American football players do and it's rough and ready, right? Xavier Rio (04:09.166) Yeah, we wear our jacket. We wear our jersey. Brent Peterson (04:12.089) Yeah. Okay, so before we get started, we'll talk a little bit about global ecommerce and B2B. You have volunteered to be part of the Free Joke Project. So I'm going to tell you an extremely funny joke and just give me a rating one through five. Five being the best. I know we had a debate about that. Not negative five. That's okay. So here we go. Fun fact. Australia's biggest export is boomerangs. It's also their biggest impo- Xavier Rio (04:33.134) Sure. Xavier Rio (04:43.328) Hmm... Four, I would say. Brent Peterson (04:46.289) All right, thanks. I appreciate that. All right, let's talk a little about e-commerce. Maybe let's start with the vision, the vision of 3M. And I know 3M has been in the online selling business for a long time, and they've had multiple practices across global B2B, B2C, everything. So tell us a little bit about how 3M fits into that. Xavier Rio (05:12.834) Yeah. So first of all, it's important to remind that 3M is a global science and technology company that creates solutions to empower modern life, advance human progress, and deliver a bright future through 3M science, and serve three customers through three business groups, safety, industrial, transportation, electronics, and consumer. And 3M go-to-market strategy is primarily through channel partners for the safety industry and consumer groups. So we have an indirect e-commerce go-to-market which operates through e-commerce partners' platform and marketplaces served by our distributors. So our vision is to unleash the exponential growth in e-commerce by elevating 3M product experience through enriched product content, empowering customers on 3M products. discoverability and transactability on partners e-commerce platform and marketplaces across all areas. Brent Peterson (06:21.233) Wow, okay. That's pretty incredible. And I think 3M2 is really well known for, like you said earlier, innovating, coming up with new concepts. How about innovating and concepts within the actual e-commerce space, maybe talk about what are they doing in B2B and what are they innovating in that's maybe different than some of the competition? Xavier Rio (06:44.866) Yeah. And usually when we describe innovation, innovation is equal to invention and commercialization. We could have great invention, but if we are not able to commercialize, it won't be an innovation. And innovation can be, course, our platform technology, on our product, but also on how we are commercialize our product. That's why For e-commerce, we are implementing a digital chef enhancement program that is really empowering product experience based on insights and getting from web crawler to feed and always on model. So it's really how we are driving product experience. through this innovation project and model. Brent Peterson (07:45.797) Are you seeing a lot of B2B now adopting a lot of what D2C was doing and even what if you would think traditional D2C that the B2B market is using some of those concepts to not only go to other distributors but to go to manufacturing and things like that? Xavier Rio (08:05.804) Yeah, we always experience that some of the B2C trends are now coming to the B2B. But for the B2B environment, it's always important to really understand what is the differences between B2C and B2B. For B2C, we are speaking about consumer and B2B company. And what is really interesting on B2B is on B2B we will have to deal with company so we will have to understand what their segment, how they operate and even inside each of the company which we are we have to understand what our role and responsibility of the different persona in a single company and even inside an overall segment. And it's how B2B operation and B2B commerce is so patient because we have to under all these different variables to run effective business and marketing strategy. Brent Peterson (09:20.497) In that digital design concept, how does it differentiate itself from what now they're doing? What traditional, and I don't want to use the word traditional because it seems like everything is changing so quickly, but what differentiates that from the, let's call it the common practice in selling business to business? Xavier Rio (09:42.798) So what is really different is how we will efficiently implement digital to enhance and empower the business operation. B2B is a kind of, we can say sometime, old way to commercialize product. And e-commerce is not the end state. Really the end state is omni-channel. contract commerce to really how we leverage how did value process tools and capability to generate power to the company and to the customer. And it's when we are able to merge these different components from offline, from online, and consolidate on an effective omni-channel strategy. that we bring value, growth, and profits to companies. Brent Peterson (10:49.285) Yeah, if we think about Omnichannel 30 years ago for business to business, it was using fax, telex, maybe sending a paper PO, just getting on the cusp of starting to send emails. now Omnichannel means something different. How does it, what is it adopting from Omnichannel in terms of B2C? Like if you think about social commerce, things like that, what are the What are the ways that B2B is adopting the omnichannel practice? Xavier Rio (11:23.34) I think B2B starts, as you mentioned, with, at the beginning, was multi-channel. We had additional one. Then we evolved the concept from multi-channel to cross-channel. I think it was 10 years ago. And I remember when I did my MBA, I wrote a thesis on how to implement a B2B cross-channel strategy. But then it continued to evolve to implement this omni-channel concept. And Omnichannel concept is we can reach all the different channel and touch points, and we can have interaction and a kind of continuity across the different cell cycles, across the different silos, the different channel, and be efficient on how we are dealing with all the information data points that will the next activity, the next touch-up point. And social commerce is just the next stage of how customers are interacting on data, on information, on these brands. It's just before that it was on print catalog, then only on trade show, now it's more on, it was on internet, now it's evolving to so- to social media, it's really just an evolution. And from my point of view, it's not the end. There is no end. It's just the natural way of how business and mega trends are evolving. Brent Peterson (13:10.021) I know 3M has always been on the leading edge of how they communicate with their clients, how they communicate with other businesses that doing, that are in their sphere. How important now is video in terms of communicating some of that vision or even communicating products to not just the consumer but to other businesses? Xavier Rio (13:32.174) So video is, with the social media increase, is really one of the key driver media to share message. And video is just a media. But we need to understand and has its part of the communication. We always have to raise the question, what is the purpose? How to reach the right user at the right customer stage on the right targeting segment persona. And then for each of the customer step, what is the right format to properly reach? Probably at the beginning on the awareness stage, we have to provide some solution video with introducing some problem solving. But when we are close to the conversion step and we should promote more some shortened video with really a bullet point that will drive the decision making of the end user. Brent Peterson (14:46.489) I that I just saw a stat about the different Gen Z millennials, how they're changing B2B, how they're changing how businesses work and with other businesses. And if you think about the traditional B2B buyer, it may be an older person, a more mature buyer that sometimes are resistant to change. Are you seeing a lot of change happening faster because those younger people are now taking positions where There may have been somebody that was familiar with the Tellex machine that it was resistant to a lot of this change. Xavier Rio (15:23.15) We already noticed this kind of change and it's really amazing how new generation are driving the pace on evolving how we are driving business. And it's at all the diff, as I mentioned earlier, it's at the different stage of the customer journey. Because when we think about B2B, they are the buyer, but they are the prescriptor, they are the user of the of the product and all these different roles in the organization with different age are evolving differently. So it's already something that we clearly see with a lot of product users that are using on a day every day 3M and B2B products. Brent Peterson (16:16.209) We think about 3M with some traditional products like tape and Post-it notes. What are you seeing that is really driving the market right now? And we also see 3M going direct to the consumer as well as B2B. Where is 3M really thriving right now in terms of how they're growing and where they're finding channels to grow in? Xavier Rio (16:42.382) So I think we are a bit more back on selling directly to end user. It's something that we made some pilots. We get some very interesting learning. But I think really our key go-to-market model is to go through channel for many for safety, industrial, and consumer business group. It would be a bit different for transportation and electronic. One of the key what we all really want to drive is more innovation with platform. We really are working on sustainability. we recently released a new safety hearing helmet with communication that can be recharged by solar energy. And it's the first product in the world that have this kind of a solar recharge energy capability in the market. So it's really leveraging sustainability. It's one of the key trends and key opportunity for 3M to again solve key problems, key emerging trends by science and technology. Brent Peterson (18:04.209) Yeah, you know, I guess I'm from Minnesota. So we think about 3M being here, being in St. Paul. But it's really is a global organization and there's so many things that happen all over the world. How important is it to get in? You do a lot of output like you sell things, but getting input from all the different regions here in New York and France. How important is it that for 3M to learn from its consumers in the region that's in? Xavier Rio (18:31.084) So I think where it's really important is, as you said, we're operating all over the world in 70 countries. And we clearly see some different level of maturity and technology adoption. And the country where I'm always amazed by how far they are in terms of e-commerce. social setting and so on, it's in China. It's really amazing how far they are advanced on driving e-commerce and advanced e-commerce technology. Brent Peterson (19:14.641) In the beginning you talked about this digital shelf. I kind of want to just go back to that and talk about how you see the business implementing the digital shelf to be successful with 3M. Xavier Rio (19:29.582) So first of all, I think it's important that we define what is Digital Shelf Concept. And it's build an end-to-end process that's average product content insights provided by WebCaller to inform cyclical content optimization and delivery process, which will enable product discoverability and transactability on our partners. on our partners' platforms and marketplaces. And for that, we should rely on technology to have, we need to build, enhance and implement the right coding capability to measure the product experience delivered by our product exchange management system, by our PXM. Secondly is with our people. for each of the stakeholders involved on business and digital shelf, how they all effectively drive the change and implement it. And it's how we drive this end-to-end process that will create value to the organization. Brent Peterson (20:45.009) We've made it through this conversation so far without talking about AI and you mentioned technology. How is AI playing a role in shaping the way 3M is delivering solutions in terms of digital to clients? Xavier Rio (21:02.99) So AI is a revolutionary technology that is empowering all pieces of our business practice. But we need to make it right, efficiently. when I say right, first of all, we have to be careful that it won't break any silo confidentiality. because it's an important element of our operation. But we clearly see that generative AI on content, on product content, video, pictures, will be a key element on productivity and scalability of our operation. And we already started to... run some project and pilots, how we can implement AI components on our day-to-day operation. every time we first raise the question, not raise the AI for AI, but what is really the problem that we want to solve? And what is the added value of the technology that we are bringing? for AI or non-AI. What is the added value of the technology and how it will serve people and processes to deliver growth and productivity. Brent Peterson (22:44.049) Yeah, I think a lot of people think of the genitive AI, but really the magic of AI, especially for business, is how it works with big data sets and behind the scenes where it helps to parse out data. What are you seeing going into next year, into 2025, that is going to be exciting in the e-commerce space? Xavier Rio (23:04.75) So based on AI, I think that we can provide more personalized message product content when we will cross company expectations segment for the same product. Imagine we are manufacturing and commercializing respirators, same product. lot of different products for different needs, but for the same product. We commercialize these same respirators for workers in MRO, electricity, or even for a large supplier, large constructor. But the message, usually the same. Generative AI will enable us to adjust our message based on the segment. If it's in metal. metal industry, on transportation, or on construction, on food and beverage. These different segments, companies, have different requirements and needs. And right now, with our message, most of the companies are not able to really differentiate the message, the claims, the product description, to these different segments. So Generative AI will able to... make this personalization and enable based on customer segmentation how we will link that. Brent Peterson (24:44.395) You bring up an interesting concept because personalization in the DDC is yearly for the individual, but personalization in B2B is for the whole company, right? So there's a different sort of persona. What do you see changing in terms of how you're segmenting or personalizing businesses compared to personalizing an individual? Xavier Rio (25:06.828) So he has to be fully integrated because we will personalize based on segment, based on persona, and then based on an individual. So we have different layer that we need to implement and integrate with our distributor network that are sometimes generalist or sometimes already specialized based on the segment. Brent Peterson (25:35.191) so we have a few minutes left. what, are your, thoughts about, about how we went through this last quarter of black Friday, cyber Monday. And I, it might be a little, is it similar in, in France, the whole push for online sales? what do you see different? Xavier Rio (25:54.574) Yes, it's a concept that has been really adopted in France and also in most parts of the world, except maybe in China. They have additional or similar events on other days. But yeah, it's really a key moment for business. Brent Peterson (26:17.515) do you feel that there is going to be this push from a B2B standpoint to have sort of a, a cell or is it always going to be cyclical based on the product and based on the season in B2B? Xavier Rio (26:30.562) So in B2B, we have a less peak than on the B2C because at the end, we are selling B2B company or selling product to end user company. And they could also, they could, of course, make some stock because there will be better price. But at the end, they have to manage inventory for their commodity and regular product. it will always be an interesting promotional event, but it won't be as important as it's critical on the B2C environment. Brent Peterson (27:11.993) Yeah, as I said it, I thought about buying a whole container of Scotch tape and nobody's gonna probably buy a whole container. Unless it's a really good deal, Xavier Rio (27:20.814) Exactly, but we need to pay for the management and for the supply and for the inventory. Brent Peterson (27:24.865) Exactly. So as we close out, give all of our guests a chance to do a shameless plug, what anything, and I know that you have 50,000 plus products that you could plug. What would be the exciting thing that you see from a product standpoint for this next year? Xavier Rio (27:42.734) So really the one that I already mentioned is the connection helmet, which is recharged by solar energy. Really something that it's really amazing because it's enabling product safety with very high quality. But in the meantime, it's solving One problem which is recharge the helmet or having additional battery. And the third issue is about leveraging sustainable energy by solar energy. And I think it's one of the products which I really amaze by the company. Brent Peterson (28:34.223) Yeah, I guess the people think don't think about all the different areas. So solar is one of the areas that 3M or at least personal solar trying to get those those things charged in a smaller scale is something that you're excited about for 3M. Xavier Rio, that's been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Xavier Rio (28:55.022) Thank you very much, Rint.